On the up: Finding parking space
On the down: People who fuck with you at the carpark

Sometimes you get into a carpark at the busiest time of the day and it's heaving with cars, so packed out, kancils have parked themselves into the shopping trolley bays. Then you see some people headed towards their car so you put your signal on and wait, happy happy! You sit, you wait; sometimes, if it's really crowded, a whole line of cars pile up behind you waiting for you while you wait.

So they open the boot, they put their things in, they fiddle, they move around their car like they're meditating. While they're doing all this, they see you waiting in your car, with your signal on. They make eye contact. And then they go back to loading things into the boot, the backseat, the front seat, looking in the mirror at their eyebrows.

And then, after alllllllll that, they lock their car and walk off, some of them with the gall to look again in your direction as they cross back the way they came.

Really, couldn't they have just TOLD YOU that they weren't going??! Is shaking their head or making a hand gesture really that difficult? It's not like they didn't see you!

Next time that happens, I am totally going to run them over as they walk back across the road.

On the up: Shopping during office hours
On the down: Not getting to keep any of it

Part of my work involves a whole day at the shops - I get to shop for a living. Like wow say all the people stuck in a cubefarm crunching numbers all day. See, as a fashion writer, I get the much envied job of picking up clothes to be featured in our mag and sending them for photo shoots. Yah, true, it's fun for about 5 minutes... then, like any other job, reveals it more tiresome side. This is why it is not always fun to shop for work:

Preparation
... involves sending an infinite number of faxes to companies asking them to approve a product loan.

Some of them are fabulous and approve it straight away (like Tengku Shamel who is the most fabulous marketing person).

Others you have to ring and harrass them. In short, it's like, "Please please please approve my loan so I can borrow items from your store and feature it in our magazine and give you free publicity!" Lynn from NafNaf is the worst of the lot and deserve a slap and a demotion for not doing her job properly.

On the day
The day usually starts out totally fun - yay! A whole day of shopping ahead.

Then again... you're not shopping for yourself, so you get to see (and maybe borrow) heaps of cool stuff but none of it is for you. And you have to return it within a week.

There are restrictions as you're looking for specific items to fill specific themes. When you reach the last store and they don't have those cropped black silk trousers it is entirely worthy of a panic attack.

The sales assistants - especially the Chinese girls - do not understand the concept that they are supposed to help you. You have to put up with their horrible rudeness all day long.

When you're still walking around the shops by 7pm (having started at 10am) looking for print cotton dresses, you feel you cannot ever look at a shop or a cash till ever again... and thus, the whole shopping experience is ruined for you.

...........

Then again, I could still be processing press releases in an office and writing articles about college students.... infinitely worse. Count my blessings, immense gratitute. Ommmmm...

On the up: A day at the theatre
On the down: Falling asleep in it

I thought I'd get out of my uncultured rut and go to see M! The Opera when GL suggested a whole bunch of us make a day out of it. So I put on my Sunday best and trotted over to Istana Budaya to see this phantasmagoria of musical theatre with the whole gaggle of Fuzet, Scotti, Shirley, Sharon, GL, PG, William et al (can't remember their names lah).

Within three scenes, I had fallen asleep. Every time I started awake and looked up, there would be someone walking really slowly across the stage and music that sounded like it was trying too hard to be artistic.... which only prompted me to go back to sleep. I'm so uncultured, I know. It was all just trying soooo hard and doing too much in 3 hours, and that Paula Malai Ali is just as irritating on stage as she is on TV. The only thing that made me stay on was the promise of food and drink with the others afterwards.

Which paid off because we ended up in Bakerzin where I sat next to Shirley and got force-fed half of everything she was eating, on top my own huge plate of saturated-fat-flavoured pasta. It's very dangerous to go out with this lot - they make you eat and eat and eat and it feels so damn good at the time but so totally disgusting after.

Sunday, well spent :)

On the up: Beautiful people
On the down: Beautiful people who don't have an intellect to match

There's that thing about models being dumb and snooty which is not strictly true since the first few I met were really down to earth and lovely, and didn't think it was a big deal at all that they were beautiful.

Then one day, at a pot luck dinner over at Sharon's house, Ming brought over this skinny beanpole of a Slovakian model. She looked very snooty and although she was exceedingly thin, made off-handed remarks about not wanting to eat anything because she was "getting fat." Ugh, typical boring model behavior, we thought.

The conversation turned to something about facial features and plastic surgery. Then out of the blue, Miss Slovakia announces very loudly across the table, "Well, it doesn't make any difference. All of you Asians look like you've had an iron (pronounced eye-ren) fall on your nose." Mind, there were about 10 Chinese people there, and one Slovakian. We all looked at her like, "Errrr, I think you're in the minority here - are you looking for a slap?" hehe...

Today, a friend F at WAO told me about a model she'd met. First of all the model made her feel really bad about being single. Then, as a bunch of White men came into the bar, the model exclaimed, "Oh look! There's a whole heap of single guys now."

F said she didn't really like Caucasians.

To which the model asked, "Oh? Where's Caucasia?"

It's true. It really is. Models can be real dumb.

On the up: Bukit Bintang
On the down: Crap parking...

I just LUUUUURVE Bukit Bintang, the whole area stretching from Westin all the way down to the dirty Jalan Alor Bit. I don't care what people say about it being lala and all the people there being real ah lians. I LOVE IT! Everytime I go down (which isn't often because of the damn traffic), I wonder why I don't go more often. And it seems I never have enough time to do everything I want to get done while I'm there.

I love love love that there are cute posh stores and also cute cheap super-tacky places where everything looks like it's neon. And totally fattening fun places like Tiffin Bay, Green Lotus and all that fooooooood in the bottom bit of Starhill to just sit around and eat til you're sick. And no matter how long you've lived in KL, you'll always find something you never did before.

Consider, there really is everything there:


Only downer? Parking is either waaaay expensive or dark, dingy and smells.

Obviously, feeling the need to write the last entry indicates I haven't developed patience and learnt that illusive thing about letting go yet. Oh what the heck, that's why I'm still in sitting here and not on some fancy cloud up in wherever producing turning rain into pretty snowflakes and such. You don't just get enlightened overnight, you know!

On the up: Patience
On the down: People who get on your fucking nerves

So much for watching a DVD on the Dalai Lama speaking about Compassion yesterday. Less than 24 hours later, here I am, working diligently away on a transcript about not pissing people off, when V, who I haven't spoken to in almost 2 months, rang.

"Hey! Guess what! I just saw your boyfriend here in Starhill..." she said. I wondered why it was so very important to ring me up just to tell me that. Then:

"Hey, so he's driving Mercedes ar?"

"No, he got a BMW. It's damn nicer than my car man. So bloody jealous!" I said jokingly (still wondering what the point was of her call).

"Oh, okay. But eeeeeeyeeeeerrrrrrrrr. I don't get it lar, we are young people and BMWs are such an old man car," she snooted down the phone. (Funny, considering it's usually a car associated with yuppies?). Then proceeded to go on and on why it was so NOT cool, justifying its inappropriateness as if we'd been forcing her to drive it.

The transcript about not pissing off people who you piss you off made eyes at me out the corner of my eye. "Um... okay lah," I said practising enough patience to grant me Enlightenment. "But it drives nice though, very comfy."

"Yah but stiiiillllll, you know... He should get, I dunno, a Peugeot or something like that lah." (Peugeot versus BMW? I dunno... what would you get if you could afford it?)

Within 2 minutes, the conversation had gotten so bizarre and ridiculous that it was no longer irritating so much as funny. I was starting to feel embarrassed for her for making herself look so petty and daft.

But then, to backtrack a little to save face, she added, "But but I don't mean anything bad lah. Don't think I mean anything bad, okay?"

Errrr, then why ring up out of the blue and spend 90% of the conversation lambasting my boyfriend's car? (It's not even my car, mind). Did she think that would "mean something good?"
God, some people are just sooooooo common about the way they behave!

On the up: Funny MSN conversations during work hours
On the down: Work during work hours

While at work today, A sends me a message on MSN. "What are you doing?"

"I'm at the magazine," I answered. While looking up old photos of Ashlee Simpson, I could see the message icon lighting up orange and blinking, blinking, blinking, blinking. When I finally checked, it said:

A: but what are you doing?
A:why dont you wash cars for a living?

I said, "Alright!" thinking he was just doing the general silliness thing again. He went on,

A: There is a guy in my building that washes cars. 15rm a car and say he washed 6 a day that is 90rm a day
A: 450 rm a week
A: 1800 ringit a month tax free
A : which come to think of it isn't alot

And then, right at the end as an afterthought...

A: maybe you shouldn't wash cars for a living.

Then he went back to his work.

On the up: Immaturity
On the down: Growing up, getting serious

I seem to be having some sort of nostalgic moment re: friends and such. Friend from boarding school, Isabelle, was down in KL for the weekend. I spent the definitive growing up years with her as roommates for three years and it's kind of strange to meet up with someone 12 years later and see that she's almost exactly the same... which is a good thing of course. She made me realise how "serious" I've become. I'm still siao lah, but comparatively, if you look at the completely idiot things we used to do, I'm a flipping square now. Things like:

We went to La Bodega when Isabelle was in KL, she drank half of this funny-looking Martini and looked like she was going to throw up. Here we are looking errr.... glamourous. Hah.

On the up: Childhood
On the down: Realising you're ageing

I wondered what it would be like to write about things now through the eyes of ourselves aged-5 - something along the lines of....?

My best friend

I have a friend. Her name is Shantini. She is very pretty. Her face looks like it is made from chocolate. I like to go to lunch with her. We eat a lot of cake until we feel very sick. We like to talk a lot. We like to bash up men when we talk. It is very fun. Because boys are dumb sometimes. Shantini says maybe we are femeeneests but I don't know what that means. She is very clever and knows a lot of things. We like to go shopping. Shantini has lots of expensive shoes. I want her shoes. They are red. She said they are 1000 ringgits but I do not have so much money not. So I have to work very hard. But Shantini said she will lend me her big red handbag. It is very nice. I can hold the handbag and wear my red Escada dress and go to a big party. It will be very nice. Shantini and I have a lot of fun.

The end.

On the up: Enlightenment
On the down: The time it takes to get there

Here's the thing: I'm known to be horrible most of the time. I think my mother has called me a monster before - bad moods, temper tantrums, being such a bitch to everyone at home that they literally get in their cars and drive away.

But here's the other thing, my little deep hidden secret: I want to be nice! I want to be Enlightened! and get the hell outta all the bad moods and reincarnating over and over and over. And heck, all those Buddhas look fabulous, you know. Big fat crowns and flowers and you get this amazing body.

Actually most people think it's very strange. When I volunteer to work some Sundays at our Dharma centre's shop in town, Kechara Mystical Treasures, the customers always look at me funny. They come up very close and look down their nose: "Are you Buddhist?" I say, "Well, I'm trying to be!" and laugh (cos really, I think if I said I really 100% was, they might never come back into the shop....) but they don't get it and it only increases their skepticism.

Ah pish. Well. At least I'm trying!

On the up: The good workings of karma
On the down: People who never learn from it

I have this uncle who is the most kiam siap person in the world. Two examples:

1) He took my grandmother out for lunch one day a while ago. This being in Klang, lunch for two only cost RM20 so he paid, very magnanimously, out of his own pocket... and then kept the receipt and claimed it back from the family company.

2) A few days ago, there were prayers for grandmother's 100-day death anniversary and our favourite nun came to preside over the ceremony. Afterwards, as is the custom, the family would give her an angpow. Uncle KiamSiap asked my dad for the cash, RM100, which he stuffed into a red packet and handed over to the lovely nun in a big flourish of mock humility, full of smiles. The next day, he claimed RM100 from the family company, which went straight back into his own pocket.

Anyway, his house got robbed recently while he was away on holiday and nobody is feeling particularly sorry for him. I love the workings of karma.

On the up: Flowers
On the down: The way they die so fast!

I had to go buy flowers today and while I was standing around waiting for the lady to tie up the bunch of pink posies with purple paper and a big fat pink bow, I thought being a florist must be one of the best jobs. You get to look at pretty things all day and your whole job is spent arranging big pots of colour and packing giant bouquets to make people happy (because nobody can get sad from a flowers, can they?) .

You make other people happy, you make yourself happy and you're promoting nature which um... is fast depleting.

And think of all that nice fresh air full of nice fresh oxygen all around you all day :)

On the up: Inspiration
On the down: Having the whole universe mock your hard work

After a big obsessive bout of BodyStep and running around aerobic classes in a frenzy, I've finally totally knackered out my legs and knees. Now it even hurts to drive myself to the chiropractor. Imagine that - lying flat out on a chiropractor's table at the tender age of 25 because I screwed up a few nerve endings and my hips are all outta synch.

All that laziness and elaborate schemes on how to get out of PE classes for 10 years of school has come back to bite me in the ass (and misaligned the nerve endings in the process). Now that I do actually really truly madly deeply want to get fit, lose the fat and exercise myself down to Lindsay Lohan, I. Just. Can't.

And then, today I finally decided I would do lots of work. I even wrote a list of things to do this week and pinned it up next to my desk. So the rajin, ok? So there I was: plod plod plod on an article when BOOF! power cut. And my laptop battery doesn't work so everything shut off and work had to stop.

The procrastination has come back to bite my eager typing fingers and mock me. Something in the air is definitely conspiring to keep me away from self-improvement.

Oh go on... another one!

As inspired by...

On the up: Johnson's Baby Oil
On the down: Expensive oil

All that expensive stuff they flog as makeup remover/purifying cleansing oil is rubbish. Johnson's baby oil works just as well and costs a song. And hell, if it's good enough for those fragile, spongey moppets they call babies, then it's good enough for the rest of us aging monsters.

On the up: Glamorous friends
On the down: Not seeing them often enough

Met up with two of the most fabulous people today, which made an ordinary Sunday a little bit more special: Mike @ Snips @ Starhill. The best stylist and the only one who has ever been able to cut my hair the way I want it and better. He's the only stylist I've ever met who is actually interested in experimenting with hair and not just errr, cut it under 30 minutes.

Now I have hair to rival Natalie Portman's - I AM SO VOGUE FRONT COVER! It's so short I don't think I actually know anyone else with hair this short (except Mike, but he's bald so that doesn't count) so I'm setting a new style trend, Darling. It's very fantastic in the way of being able to look like a lunatic escapee if I put on the right makeup and wore all white. We like alternative chic.

After the hair cut, Mike and I went down to Tiffin Bay for lattes where I learnt that flavoured lattes all taste the same - too damn sweet, even for me. And then who should we see stomping in in a kitschy pink shirt? Ming, with a girl in tow, of course.

Ming is the most fantastic person I know. I am starting to think I'd quite like to be her, even for a day. Just swap bodies and be Ming Chan for 24 hours. See, Ming's in the heart of everything fashion - she knows what women should be dressed in and what men should look like right now, and she has access to stuff like Vivienne Westwood (!!!)- so all the girls worship her. And then, Ming is constantly surrounded by beautiful people and leggy models, and she can have any girl she wants (literally!), so all the boys worship her too.

Then again, given all she has and is, Ming stays disgusting low profile. She's subtle cool and underground famous, not like those tacky Tatler celebs (yuck). Like, if she turned up at your party, you know you've hit some sort of cool factor that nobody knows about because it's all so secret and exclusive. She hasn't made it to my parties yet, but my claim to fame is hanging out with her Nepal and eating breakfast in 2degree chill - good enough for now, for a commoner like me.

On the up: Cross-dressing
On the down: Mistaken identities

Seeing as I was so excited about the new blog, I thought I'd show it off to A in the morning. He said, through his flu-congested sniffling, "I don't think you should put that photo. You look like a transvestite." Now, I don't have anything against transvetites, I think they're fabulous. Actually many of them are more beautiful than real women but I don't think that was quite what A meant.

Anyway, after many years of people actually thinking I *might* be a boy, it's all starting to get a little confusing, and tired. Bibi (of The Ship fame) even went on to say I'm actually a gay man trapped in a woman's body (so what does that make A?). Well, so, the photo is down and bright red lippy is up in its place....

Not that it's trying to say anything about gender and I don't even wear bright red lipstick but it just fits the red and pink colour scheme lah.

On the up: Post-midnight energy
On the down: Threats of flu

Wheee! This is just too much fun. After two years, I've discovered I can write in different colours. See, technology does evade me but I'm getting the hang of it and it's all very exciting.

It's time to go to bed - A is down with a flu and I'm sitting here breathing in all his germs while he snores his way to wellness. Surely the clever thing to do would be to go to get out and go to the other room to avoid the germs but I haven't got round to getting wireless set up yet so I'm still anchored to my desk like a deadweight. Keep saying I'll do it when we move out to the apartment (which won't be for at least another six months anyway). Procrastination is fabulous.

Which is just what I'm doing now instead of um... important stuff like work (dirty four-letter word)...

On the up: Weekends
On the down: Work on the weekends

Whoopee! A new blog! I even put some effort in customised it pink... took bloody forever just to figure out how to change the colour but I DID IT! Now will someone please please teach me Photoshop so I can put up a nicer banner thing than what you're looking at now? Gawd, this HTML, technology thing is just so awful.

I know how to turn on the computer, check email, write my articles and send them to the relevant people. The end. And now HTML?! "Layers" in Photoshop? *gag*

Anyway, remember Dolly Mixture and how it died? Well I couldn't keep my big mouth shut. Must keep writing junk and polluting the spaces of the web. If people don't like it, tough - they can go read something else.

Boyfriend, A, said one day, "You can tell how narcissistic someone is just through their blog" which of course was an indirect reference to me. Um... yah... of course it's narcissistic. Otherwise, what's the point? hehe